Shigeru Yoshida

Shigeru Yoshida (22 September 1878-20 October 1967) was Prime Minister of Japan from 22 May 1946 to 24 May 1947, succeeding Kijuro Shidehara and preceding Tetsu Katayama, and again from 15 October 1948 to 10 December 1954, succeeding Hitoshi Ashida and preceding Ichiro Hatoyama.

Biography
Shigeru Yoshida was born in Yokosuka, Japan in 1878, and he graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1906, upon which he entered the civil service. He served in China, Italy, Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and he retired from diplomatic service in 1938 after his ambassadorship to Britain ended. Yoshida was considered a hawk on China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, but he strongly opposed war with the United States and the United Kingdom during World War II. He joined Fumimaro Konoe in unsuccessfully attempting to deescalate the situation, and he was arrested and briefly imprisoned in 1945 for his association with Konoe.

Following the war's end in 1945, Yoshida joined the newly-formed Liberal Party of Japan, and Ichiro Hatoyama's purge by the Allied Powers in 1946 led to Yoshida taking Hatoyama's place as the elected Prime Minister of Japan. He was replaced by Tetsu Katayama in 1947, but he returned in 1948, and he signed the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco, ending the Allied occupation of Japan in the aftermath of the war. Under Yoshida, Japan began to rebuild its lost industrial infrastructure and placed a premium on unrestrained economic growth. In 1952, Takushiro Hattori had the backing of 500,000 Japanese in a plotted violent coup against Yoshida that would install Hatoyama in power, but the plot never materialized, and Yoshida left office in 1954. He retired from politics in 1963, and he died four years later.